August 19: Haines Junction to Whitehorse: 100 miles, 2 hour drive


A RED letter day for several reasons:
1. We found a nice bakery in HJ and had great Apple Bombs for breakfast and bought some for tomorrow also.
2. It is not raining and we saw the tops of mountains!
3. Termination dust was on the mountains and there are fall colors. (Sorry for mentioning this for our Alaska friends.)

4. We saw an elk, but Yukon elk have head and butt facing the same direction. An interesting design.
5. We saw a LYNX!!!!! Dean’s first ever even though being in Alaska 30 years. It ran across the road in front of us and we got a glimpse of it in the black spruce and alders along the road.
6. We saw a big hawk sitting in a tree close to the road.
7. We visited a small remote cemetery and found a Canadian Survey marker nearby. (Look up the survey # to get the cemetery’s location.)

So all in all a very nice day on a relatively short drive.

Mendenhall Landing is where the riverboats on the Takhini River docked and transfered their goods onto wagons for the trip on the Whitehorse-Kluane Wagon Road to the mining districts.  These are the docking slips and the river is beyond the present day culverts.